


A rather nice girls trip (and a terrible day in the life of Cid Highwind)

by spherebleue



Series: Turks are questionnable parental figure [3]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: And once again nobody care, Fluff, Gen, Humor, If Marlene doesn't end up a Turk after that i don't know what to add, Rude enjoy once again a fine day, Slice of Life, So once again we have a murder in a corner, Turk version, can't believe i almost forget those two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25556440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spherebleue/pseuds/spherebleue
Summary: “This is who you need to save.”As one, the three Turks peers over the picture. Elena’s face become grim. Reno nods gravely. Rude adjust his sunglasses.“Name of the victim?” asks Elena with a fully professional tone. Reno would almost believe it if he couldn’t see the way her mouth twitches upward.Or : Cid played a joke on Barret. Marlene is Not Amused™, and calls for backup.
Series: Turks are questionnable parental figure [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767586
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	A rather nice girls trip (and a terrible day in the life of Cid Highwind)

**Author's Note:**

> So, here I am again with a silly idea that most definitively cost half of my brain. Why did I decided to write that in anything other than my mother tongue? I don't know. 
> 
> Kudo to those who will catch the (rather large) reference made to Amelie Poulain. And thanks to pakoyaaki for the beta read!

When Barret storms in the Seventh Heaven, scowl firmly in place, all conversation cease. In three long strides he crosses the whole bar, before letting himself falls on a stool, planting his elbows on the counter, and asking for a whisky on the rock. The man that was already at the counter make the wise decision to pay for his drink before getting out. He is followed rather quickly by a good half of the patrons when Tifa, after talking with her friend, also starts scowling hard enough to break a tooth. In the face of her wraths, not a single soul is brave enough to speak.

Unless you count the three Turks in the corner, who have resumed the heated argument they were having before this interruption. But one could say that this is more a case of pure foolishness than bravery.

Marlene frowns at her dad. From the picture he has slammed down on the counter, she has a pretty good idea of what, exactly, is wrong. It’s the same thing that is bugging him since uncle Cid’s last visit, three weeks ago, which coincide with the start of a running joke which has stopped being funny around the fourth iteration. It involves a really important object for her dad, a questionable use of an airship, and pictures of said object with Cid in front of various monument all across the country. Admittedly, the first picture was pretty funny, and her dad wasn’t that mad at the time. But as Denzel said: the best jokes are the short ones, and three weeks is definitively not short.

Denzel says that this deserve revenge. Marlene has an idea.

Her dad sips at his whisky, and sulks, and grumbles to Tifa, and even yells a bit. At some point, he goes upstairs, probably to plot Cid’s demise: it’s the moment she was waiting for. She grabs a chair, slowly dragging it toward a particular table. It scraps against the floor all the way there, because she doesn’t have enough force to lift it properly, and she set it down with a satisfied huff when she finally reaches her destination. Then, she grabs a pitcher of beer, goes back to the table, plant the pitcher in the centre, climb on the chair, and adopt the most serious face she can muster.

“I have a mission for you.”

The Turks, who have been watching her since she started dragging the chair, looks at each other. Rude move an eyebrow in Reno’s direction, Reno shrugs his shoulders in answers. There is an entire conversation contained in the span of a second between them, on whether or not Tseng will be mad at them for using important assets to help the kid again. There is also an entire dissertation in Elena’s subsequent tilt of head, with little bullets points to illustrate the pro and con of actually doing what they should absolutely not do (but will nonetheless).

“Ya want to pay us with beer Marl’?“ Say Reno, and Elena kindly smiles at Marlene while digging her heel in Reno’s foot under the table. She’s pleased to see his left eyebrow twitches in pain.

“What Reno wanted to say was: thanks you for bringing us a drink.” Reno pinches her thigh, she applies a bit more weight on her foot in response before retracting her legs, hands folded professionally on the table.

“You’re welcome! It’s for the negocio, negocia… the thing where you talk business.”

“Negociation ? ” proposes Rude while adjusting his glove, a clear sign that if Reno wishes to keep his teeth in his mouth, he better put away his Mag rod and find another way to retaliate against Elena.

“Yeah ! Tifa always does that when she wants people to help her. I can get you more…“ Marlene pushes the pitcher toward them, and make another attempt at a serious face. “but only if you accept this mission.”

The Turks exchange another glance.

“That sound like a nice deal. What’s the mission, yo ? “

“It’s a rescue mission. I have pictures.” From a pocket in her dress, she takes out multiple shots, all send by Cid in the last three weeks. “To id the corpse, like you said last time.” Elena’s head whips toward Reno, eyebrows raised so high that they nearly touch her hairline. He completely ignores her and instead smiles proudly at the little girl. “You remembered! Ya got a good memory, ya know that? ” Marlene smiles at the praise, swinging her feet on her chair. She points at a particular item in one of the pictures.

“This is who you need to save.”

As one, the three Turks peers over the picture. Elena’s face become grim. Reno nods gravely. Rude adjust his sunglasses. 

“Name of the victim?” asks Elena with a fully professional tone. Reno would almost believe it if he couldn’t see the way her mouth twitches upward. 

“Miss Daisy. She’s my dad’s old plush. She’s really really old, older than him even! Do you think you can save her?”

She blinks at them, all big teary eyes and cute little pouts. Rude elbows Reno, who sighs.

“Kid, you can’t use that against the one that taught it to ya. And Rude and I will be away for the next week, so it’s up to ‘Lana.”

They all turns toward the blond. Marlene nudges the pitcher toward her with a hopeful expression. A second passes. Finally, the youngest of the Turks heaves a sigh.

“Oh, I must have spent too much time with you Reno. Alright Marlene, we accept the mission.”

The kid pumps her fist upward with a cry of joy. Reno raises his glass, a smile on his lips.

“Turks to the rescue, yo !”

\---

Somewhere in Wutai, a weird feeling reaches Cid Highwind. It came so suddenly that he stops barking order at his crew for a moment, unsure of what, exactly, is the source of his unease. The pilot scratches his nose, chews a bit on his cigar, before shrugging. It’s probably only those weird local dishes, he’s always thought eating so much fish wasn’t healthy.

\---

“So, step one of a rescue mission is finding the victim. Did you get all the photos Marlene?”

“Yeah! There is a lot. Uncle Cid also writes things behind some of them, but Tifa said that I shouldn’t read it.”

Elena flips the most recent pictures. They’re in Marlene’s bedroom, both of them sitting on her little bed, and honestly, it’s so cliché that Elena is feeling three seconds away from doing something horribly girly, like braiding the little girl hairs. This bring back far too many memories of her sister and her chatting endlessly in their common bedroom, and it’s so bittersweet it pulls at her heart.

To this day, she still finds herself missing her big sister in random moment like this, over little things or memory on which she stumbles upon blindly while going on with her life.

Downstairs, Reno and Rude are once again using Tifa’s kitchen, the former for it’s original purpose and the latter probably for a far more questionable one. They’re most likely getting something ready for their next mission, in their usual pre-mission kitchen raid that they somehow always manage to do in an innocent civilian’s home. And even if Elena wishes she could see what, exactly, they’re making this time, right now she needs to focus on little Marlene’s desire for a swift rescue (and probably an even swifter vengeance).

“I can see why. Though you probably heard worse from Reno by now. So, the good news is that the post office stamped each one of them with a date, and since I doubt Cid is covering his traces, they were probably stamped right after being taken. It means that we know both where he was and when. Do you understand?”

“Yeaaah… I think? But we want to know where he will be, not where he was. Right?”

Elena smiles at the girl. “Reno is right, you’re a smart one.” Marlene grins, a little embarrassed but still obviously pleased by the praise. Elena picks up her PHS to type a message while explaining.

“It costs a lot to fly an airship. Cid always transport goods, sometime even passengers, to cover the expanse. When you do that kind of service, you go from one airport to another, and in each one you have to register where you’re going next and for who. Do you follow?”

“Uuuuuhhh…”

“It’s like a chain, if that help. One delivery after the other.”

Marlene scrunches her face. The PHS vibrates, and Elena take the time to respond to her informant while the kid thinks. She makes a note of the rather poor security of Wutaiain’s airport, and specifically of goods transports. They might need to hide some incriminating evidences on a later mission, and Wutai is honestly as far as Midgar as you can get.

“I think I get it?”

“It’s alright if you don’t. Just stop me if you want me to explain something again. Ok?”

Marlene nods eagerly, her little legs swinging at the end of the bed. Elena squishes the sudden urge she has to pat the girl’s head. She doesn’t know Marlene that well, and Barret has been really clear with the fact that he just barely tolerates them in the bar. He wouldn’t take it well if his daughter started to see them as more than simple customers, even if that’s already a lost cause.

On another note, she’s pretty sure that he doesn’t know that they raid the bar’s kitchen on a weekly basis. Shiva help them all when he will inevitably realise.

”So, we want to know for who Cid is currently working. Do you know why? ” 

This time, Marlene just shakes her head, puzzled.

“Because step two of a rescue mission is: find a way to reach the target. And if we know for who Cid is working, then it’s just a question of nicely asking them to change his destination. No reason for us to go all the way across the globe when we can just wait for him here.”

“So… we know where he was. Which mean we can find who he is working with? And ask them to send Cid where we want? It’s like a detective work…”

Elena chuckles. She supposes the Turks can be seen as some sort of detectives, in a bloody, twisted way. If anything, they probably fills nearly as much paperwork, perhaps even more since she’s sure that they’re the only professionals with a form named “Improvised Interrogatory Session with non-regulated Tools version C : Form For Work in an Hostile Environment ”.

Absolutely nothing could have prepared her for the sight of Reno dictating one of those at Rude, feet on his desk while picking at suspiciously looking stains on his nails. To this day she still doesn’t know what shocked her the most : the content of the form, Rude calmly typing at his computer at a speed that would have make a dactylographer ashamed, or the fact that Reno was dictating a fully standardised form by memory, even going as far as giving the title of the next part to fill.

“But… Cid’s boss… are they really going to do what we want? They could say no…”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, we will take care of it. It’s only a matter of speaking to the right person! But it’s boring work, you know.” Having to reminds people that she is not just a pretty little blonde and that her threat are real tends to become annoying after a while. “So if you want we can execute step three in the meantime.”

Elena stands up and smiles. Marlene smiles back. The little girl is all chubby cheeks and kindness, but she’s still a slum kid. It shows in how her little hands aren’t as soft as they should be, callous from all the time she helps around the bar. She deserves a bit of peace, Elena thinks.

And, well, if it means destroying Cid’s faces with her fists, so be it. Elena has wanted to do that since he had called her “Shinra’s prettiest planted pot”. Granted, it was back when they were still enemy, but Elena remembers it quite clearly.

“What’s step three?”

“Preparation. Come on, let’s see what our sidekicks are up to.”

When they enter the kitchen, Rude is meticulously wrapping duct tape around a suspicious looking object whose potency for killing is probably on pars with the muffins still baking in the oven, which is saying a lot both about the explosive and about Reno’s capacity for turning basic cooking into a lethal art. It’s not what Elena has come for though, but she doesn’t have to say anything before Reno gestures with a dough covered spoon toward a sport bag in a corner. Elena pick it up, and hums when she sees the content.

“Rude added a little bonus, coming straight from his personal collection. And I want pictures yo! Can’t believe I will miss that…”

He shakes his head with a pained expression, before going back to eating the remaining dough, scrapping it from a bowl with his spoon. From the corner of her eyes, Elena see Marlene grab a spatula with a determined expression, eyes fixed on the bowl, and she exchanges an amused glance with Rude. As the six-year-old girl starts scrapping thedough along Reno, almost battling with him to get the best part, Elena takes out a little box from the backpack and opens it to reveal a batch of cookies. She immediately takes one, happily munching on it.

Marlene stops her scavenging to look at her, frowning.

“Uh. Why do we need cookie for a rescue mission?”

“Oh, we don’t need them. Reno’s cookies are just the best. You want one?”

\---

“Sorry sir, we’ve got a hostage situation: all planes are to remain on ground until further notice.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m already two goddam days late on my delivery because of that bloody detour! I can’t afford to freeze my ass off waiting here!”

“Orders from above, sir. The protocol…”

“Aaaah go to hell with you protocol! What does it matter if one ship gets out? Ain’t like we got your hostage on board!”

This time, the infantryman doesn’t respond. Instead, his gaze falls on something behind Cid, and he straightens his stance with a pained expression. The pilot turns around, only to come face to face with none other than Elena Of The Turks in full suit, hand clasped behind her back. She smiles at him. It’s a nice smile, one that Cid absolutely doesn’t trust, and reflexes make him check around for the presence of another Turks because those goddam suits are like vulture, always snooping around and never alone. 

“Blondy! Don’t tell me it’s you that’s keeping me on the ground? Cause if that’s the case, we’ve got a problem. And where the hell is lurking your partner? He better not be on my ship!”

“Oh, did we inconvenience you? I’m sorry!” She is very much not and they both know it. “But the good news is that this should be really quick! After all we already know where to find the captor.”

She smiles again, her eyes falling on the infantryman. Cid raises one eyebrow at her, but she doesn’t budge a single muscle, just kept staring at the poor man. The infantryman start fidgeting.

“We… we do ma’am? ”

“Yes, we do. We’re working on apprehending him. Just a question of time, really.”

She still doesn’t drop her gaze. The man gulps. He chances a look at Cid, who just shrugs. He has no idea what she means by that.

There is a pregnant pause.

“Do you… have order for me ma’am?”

“Not for now. Maybe in a bit.”

“Ah… Can I… help you in any way?”

“Oh, it’s really nice of you to ask! But no, we have everything under control.”

The silence stretches. Cid’s eyebrow twitches. There are beads of sweat forming on the infantryman’s temple, and he is nervously taping his weapon with the tips of his finger. 

“Shouldn’t you… be helping to arrest the captor ma’am…? ”

Somehow, Elena hasn’t dropped her smile for even a second, gaze still firmly on the infantryman, and her tone is as pleasant as it can be. Cid chews furiously on his cigar, eyes darting between the two.

“I will. Eventually.”

“Ah... I see…”

More silence. Cid swears that he can see a tumbleweed passing in the corridor. A whole goddam tumbleweed, follow by at least five others and an entire Western movie cast for good measure.

The infantryman coughs.

“Do you want some coffee, maybe? Or… a tea? Some wa…“

And that’s when Cid utterly explodes, whirling so fast on Elena and her creepy smile that it would have blinded him if he hadn’t already lost his vision to the pure rage he developed from having to watch all that bullshit. He opens his mouth, ready to drown her in a litany of every single swears words ever invented on the Planet and some more, when suddenly his entire body convulses one, two time before crashing down on the ground with all the grace of a badly cooked pancake. He writhes in pain for a minute, his body jerking randomly thanks to the delivery of fifty thousand volts right in his spinal cords, before finally going still.

The guard made a noise. It is not unlike the cry for help of a drowning man.

Marlene peers from the air ducts, taser in hand.

“Did I do well? I wasn’t too slow?”

Elena throws her a thumb up, finally releasing the poor guard from her gaze.

“No don’t worry. As I said, just a question of time!”

She bends over to retrieve Cid’s materia. The infantryman takes a step back, weapon clutched against his torso like some sort of weird metallic teddy bear.

“Though maybe next time aims for the lower parts.”

The guard wisely flees.

\---

In an undisclosed location, a PHS vibrates. Reno curses, before digging in his pocket to extract it, flipping it open with a casual movement of the wrist as Rude plunges the target’s head under water.

“Aaaaw she took down her first target! And I wasn’t even there! Can you believe how fast they grow up partner? “

Rude slightly turns his head toward him, one eyebrow raised. The target convulses under his grip, bubbling helplessly and generally emitting a sound not unlike the cry for help of a certain guard.

(By sheer coincidence it happens that said guard was in fact the target’s cousin by marriage, and that both men had seen each other only once, at Aunt Martha’s marriage, an utterly boring event whose climax had been, ironically enough, the spouse nearly drowning in the punch after a truly horrible attempt at dancing.)

“Quick work. Picture from ‘Lana?”

Reno flips the PHS around. On the screen, little Marlene stand over the prone body of one Cid Highwind, taser clutch between her two chubby hands, grinning proudly at the photographer. The picture is grainy, it’s a clear evidence of something illegal that they should not be doing, and Tseng is going to have their head for using the highest technology available to send stupid pictures to each other again.

In other word, it’s absolutely perfect.

“That’s my new background image. It’s just too cute.”

“Send it to me.”

“Already on it partner.”

In the background, the target keeps bubbling helplessly.

\---

When Cid wakes up, he is surrounded by shadows.

This, on itself, is not a rare occurrence. What is more concerning is the fact that he is tied up on a chair, dressed down to only his pants and t-shirt, in a room he doesn’t know and without a single clue about what the Turks want from him.

Because that’s a Turks job. It’s not even a question. The problem is for what, specifically, they just kidnapped him. Cid has a bit of a habit of doing things that doesn’t sit well with Shinra, so pointing which one would warrant such measure to be taken is hard. It also very much doesn’t go with the fact that they were supposed to be somewhat decent guys now, or at least should be playing the part since the alternative is Cloud and Avalanche repeatedly stomping on them.

Then again, Turks. Cid has no idea what they’re doing since the company more or least fell apart, but they sure as hell aren’t selling flowers on the streets. It’s not that they’re inherently bad guy, it’s just that, in Cid’s opinion, they’re utterly incapable of doing anything else than bribing, blackmailing, kidnapping, drug selling, killing and a lot of other thing that decent people don’t put on their resume.

They also all have, as Barret put it one day, so much screw loose that they could start a repair business if they wanted to reconvert. But Cid had always though that it was a bit hypocritical to say that when you were a member of Avalanche.

A door creaks behind him, breaking him from his thoughts. As it opens, it casts a rectangle of light in the most barren and boring room Cid has ever seen. He turns his head around to see if he can catch a glimpse of his captor, to no result. 

“Hey Turkey! What the fuck is wrong with you? Ya better let me out before Avalanche heard about this!”

He trashes a bit on his chair to punctuate his point, but nobody answers. He grunts, twists his neck again, but still he sees no one. The pilot frowns. A beat passes.

Then, the silence of the room is shattered by the scrap of metal against metal, an ear-splitting sound that make Cid grind his teeth and which seems to echo in the little room infinitely as something is slowly drag onto the floor.

Really, agonisingly slowly.

Whoever is responsible for this torture make two or three little stops, punctuated by puffs of effort before the awful noise start again, somehow managing to become worse each time. It’s a piercing sound that give Cid flashback of his old day at school, where the teacher would scrape their chalk on the board whenever the class became too rowdy. Except instead of a stern teacher with a chalk, the person he came face to face with is a six years old girl with a metallic stool.

Marlene finishes painfully dragging it in front of him, before planting it and climbing onto it. There, she takes a second to take a breath. Then she looks at him, steels her expression, and bury her hand in her dress’s pocket. She pulls out a pair of sunglasses.

Cid realise with horror that they’re a miniature version of the one Rude wear.

Marlene carefully opens them and puts them on. Then, she folds her hand on her knees, straighten her back, and say with her little voice:

“Where is Miss Daisy?”

Cid give himself a minute to actually gather his jaw that he lost at some point on the floor. Then another one to actually proceed what he just saw. And finally, he realizes what she just asked.

“Kid. Kid, whata hell is happening? Not gonna lie you kind of lost me there. Where are we? Why am I tied to that goddam chair? And more importantly, where are the suits? ”

He abruptly leans down, frowning. 

“Marl, did the Turks threaten you? Did they _hurt_ you? Because I swears if they did I will personally rip each of them a new ho…”

“Answer the question, Mr. Highwind.”

And Cid just. Blinks.

Marlene pushes back her sunglasses on her nose. Cid furrows his brows.

“Mr. Highwind? Hey since when I’m not Uncle Cid anymore? I’m hurt kiddo. “

“You have taken hostage a valuable asset Mr. Highwind. Please disclose its location.”

She starts swinging her legs a little. It’s usually an endearing habit of her, but the fact that despite that little move, she still doesn’t drop her weird act kind of terrified him to no end. He doesn’t understand the situation at all, and the more than probable presence of a suit lurking in the corner doesn’t help him think straight. 

And then it downs on him.

“That’s Barret’s idea of a revenge, isn’t it.”

Marlene doesn’t confirm it, but it’s not like he needs her to. It’s just painfully obvious, now that Cid connects the dots. He smiles, slouching in his chair as best as he can despite his bounds.

“Ok I have to admit, that’s pretty impressive acting. You got a gift Marl’. And I don’t know how you got the Turks to help ya out, but damn if that doesn’t add to the show. Still, ain’t enough to fool me!“

He cranes his neck around, letting his voice boom in the little room so that whoever is outside can heard him.

“Ya heard that? Cat’s out of the bag! You can come out Barret! And untie me before I start getting ideas!“

His shout echo in the room, and he relaxes in his chair, waiting for the inevitable moment where Barret while barrels in the room, grumbling and pesting against him. Cid smiles at Marlene, still sitting on her little stool with her little sunglasses slipping on her little nose. She keeps on swinging her legs, but she doesn’t smile back at him. He frowns.

Five minutes passes and there is still no giant man with a gun instead of an arm. Cid throws a look behind him, and nearly chokes when he catches a glimpse of Elena, standing at parade rest near the door, just at the limit of his field of vision. He has absolutely no idea of when she appeared here.

“There is nobody but us here Mr. Highwind.”

He turns around to face Marlene again. She stops moving her legs, instead jumping down her stool before smoothing her dress over. Then she straightens, and clasp her hand behind her back.

“I see you wish to remain silent. You leave us with no choice.”

She turns toward Elena, and finally, finally break from her act to direct a truly adorable pout at the Turk. It should fill Cid with relief to see her with such a normal expression. Instead of that, he only feels dreads.

“Uh, Elena? Is it the time to do the thing?”

He cannot see the blond from his position, but she must answer in some ways, because Marlene brightens. Then she darts around him, and Cid nearly breaks his neck trying to keep her on his sight. As soon as she disappears from his line of sight, his foot start tapping an erratic rhythm on the floor and he has to will it to stay still. He glares in the direction of Elena, but he can’t even do that properly with how he is positioned.

Marlene reappears, carrying with her a baseball bat.

A nailed baseball bat. With a flower pattern. And something that look suspiciously like dried blood on it.

Cid twitches. The bat is nearly as tall as the girl herself, but she still manages to lift it with both hands and put it on her shoulder in a move that look a lot like something Cloud would have done with his sword. It’s hard to say with the sunglasses, but she seems almost eager for what’s coming. Elena appears silently beside her, with what he recognises as his box of high-quality cigars.

And suddenly, he knows what’s going to happens. 

“Kid, kid, hey, maybe we could talk about it? ”

“Please remember that you brought this to yourself, Mr Highwind.”

Elena drops the box. The moment it hits the floor, Marlene brings the bat down, and starts beating it with all the energy of a Costa del Sol’s child in a pinata party. It’s a mess, there is chunks of cigar flying everywhere, and the little gold emblem engraved in the front of the box hit Cid in the chin on a particularly vicious swing. Cid will deny until his last breath his scream of sheer anguish at the sight.

“Ifrit balls fried on a dumpster fire, do you know how much those cost? Ok ok stop, for the love of the Planet when did you become such a savage! That box was a fucking gift, kid! “

Marlene stops her carnage, out of breath, standing in the middle of Cid’s ruined heart like some sort of mini vengeful goddess of blood and flower. She takes big gulp of air until she seems to finally calm down, before straightening. She lost her sunglasses at some point in her wrath, and she pouts when she sees them in the middle of the utter desolation she just unleashed.

Without saying a word, Elena smoothly pulls another pair out of her breast pocket. Marlene smiles warmly at her, exchanges the new glasses for the bat, and carefully put them on. Then she crosses her hands behind her back and resume her serious expression.

“Are you ready to talk now, Mr Highwind? ”

Cid opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. His gaze is lost on the cigar stuck on one of the nail of the bat.

“I’m telling you where is the bunny. And then you let me go and never touch my cigars again.”

Marlene turns to Elena. The blond hums with a hint of a smile in her eyes.

“That seems perfectly reasonable Mr. Highwind.”

Cid’s shoulders drop. He eyes the nice gold emblem, the one he had like to trace before taking a cigar. It’s dented now, and even a bit bended.

“It’s in the machine room, in a safe near the boiler. The password is double forty-two.”

Marlene shouts with delight, pumping her fist into the air. Elena tuts disapprovingly, even though she is smiling fondly at her. The little girl immediately stills, before bowing to him.

“Thanks you for your cooperation!”

Then she sprints out of his sight. Elena chuckles, following after her while cleaning the nail of the bat from the remains of the cigar. Cid blinks, then shouts after them.

“Hey hey hey, don’t ya forget something here kiddo? Come on, let your uncle Cid go! ”

There is a gasp, and Marlene runs back in front of him. She takes a breath, back straight, shoulders back and chin up, and said with the most serious tone possible.

“I don’t negotiate with terrorists, Mr. Highwind.”

Then she runs out.

Cid stares in disbelief at the wall for a solid second. There is a click, and he whips his head around. At his right, Elena finish extracting the camera embedded in the wall before placing it in a bag at her feet.

“You motherfucker!”

Elena smiles. It’s a really nice smile. Cid has never hated a smile more than in this moment. 

“No one will ever believe you.”

She bends down, and her smile became even more larger, white teeths glinting in the dark.

“Of course I didn’t need you to give me the localisation and the code. But let’s just said it’s payback for those littles comments of yours back then.” Her face scrunchs up in a worried expression that Cid doesn’t buy for a second. “No hard feelings, hm? And don’t worry about that little video, I promise it won’t fall into bad hands.” She tilts her head on the side, her smile coming back. “Probably. Good day to you Highwind.”

She flungs the bag on her shoulder, swings the bat with a practiced motion, and exits the room.

Cid takes a breath, in, out, and starts swearing.

\---

“Bubble wrap”

“Nah, I say it sound more like crunching cereals.”

“Are the two of you really still arguing about that?” Mutters Elena as she sits down at their usual table, in the Seventh Heaven. There is a pitcher of beer already halfway gone, and it’s easy to deduce that the two others Turks have already started consuming her payment even before the end of her “mission”. In the middle, a PHS, probably Reno’s, is diffusing on repeat a sound that Elena could probably never identity as bubble wrap or crunching cereal. Not when she was here when it was recorded.

Next to Elena, Marlene hops on her stool, which somehow hadn’t been replaced where it normally belongs.

“Hey ‘Lana, Marl’! So how was that girl trip? Did anything fun? ”

Marlene proudly shows an old bunny whose colours are so faded that it’s basically grey. The thing seems to stay together out of sheer luck, its ears drooping on its face and giving it a grumpy expression.

“Nice! Rescue mission completed then! Celebratory fist bump, yo!”

Reno extends his fist to the little girl, who happily bumps it with her own before making an exaggerated “Pooww” noise and miming an explosion with her hand. Reno, like the immature maniac he is, do the same. Rude quirks a smile. At the counter, Tifa watches the scene with a fond expression.

(The problem with Reno was that once he starts being friendly with you, no matter what you think of him, he ends up growing on you like a doped ivy straight from the most insane corner of Shinra’s lab. So really strongly and really quickly. Even Tifa wasn’t immune.)

“Are you going to give Miss Daisy back to your dad now, Marlene?” Asks Elena as she fills her glass. The little girl swings her legs, bunny in her laps with the front paws on the table.

“Yes! But I wanted to say thanks before. And uh..”

She ducks her head, looking at Rude with a pout.

“And sorry, because I broke one of the glasses you give me.”

Rude waves it off, unbothered. And, when the girl doesn’t seem convinced, he reaches across the table to pat her head. She smiles, apparently relieved. Then she frowns a little at the PHS.

“Uh… why are you listening to bubble wrap?”

Rude grins, Reno pouts, and Elena shakes her head.

“Don’t worry about it, they were just wondering what it sounds like to someone who don’t know where it came from.”

If anything, this answer puzzles the kid even more, making her tilt her head to the side.

“Uh. And where does it came from?”

There is a blank at the table. The Turk look at each other. Elena raise an eyebrow toward Reno. He sighs, and drops an hand on his PHS to mute it. 

“Don’t worry about it kid, it’s just something stupid. Go give the good news to your dad.”

Marlene blinks at them, still frowning. None of them add anything, so she drops it, and jumps from her stool to run up the stair, happily calling her dad. Elena shakes her head.

“Honestly Reno, listening to finger breaking with the kid around? You’re a terrible example.”

“Oï ! Like you’re any better, miss let’s-give-her-a-tazer ! ”

“At least I don’t teach her how to hide corpses.”

“Nah, you’re just teaching her how to make them.”

As they devolve into bickering, Rude leans back and sips his beer, watching the chaos unfold. It’s been a good day so far, and it would be a shame not to enjoy it.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you see an error/if you think I should add a tag, don't hesitate to comment !


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